ZTE is introducing the new Nubia Z9 flagship today and so far we like what we are seeing.

ZTE lost a lot of ground to Xiaomi, Huawei and Meizu over the past year or so, hence the Nubia Z9 is a rather important device for the Chinese company.

Luckily, it seems to tick all the right boxes for an alternative flagship - good value, decent specs and premium looks.

Nubia Z9 Max spec

The Nubia Z9 Max features a 5.5-inch 1080p display protected by Gorilla Glass 3. It is based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 SoC and sports 3GB of speedy LPDDR4 RAM, along with 16GB of storage, expandable via a microSD slot.

The phone sports an aluminium body, 16-megapixel rear camera with f/2.0 aperture, front camera with an 8-megapixel sensor, NFC, FDD LTE and TD LTE, along with Bluetooth 4.0 and MHL 3.0. It also has a 2900mAh battery.

The launch price is 2,499 CNY, which is about 360 EUR at press time, or 330 USD.

The Nubia Z9 Mini isn’t really "mini"

The Mini model comes with a smaller 5-inch 1080p display and the same cameras. However, it lacks the powerful 20nm SoC of its bigger sibling. The Nubia Z9 Mini is a mid-range affair, so it ships with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 SoC, backed by 2GB of RAM (mot LPDDR4). The phone also supports two LTE standards.

However, the price is what makes the Mini really interesting. It’s launching at 1,499 CNY, or about 218 EUR at press time. Basically this is a 250 USD phone with mid-range specs and a premium build, which doesn’t sound bad at all.

Both phones ship with Android 5.0, with Nubia UI 2.8 on top. The latter is our only concern, as ZTE’s previous Android skins weren’t that good. The new Nubias will be available in black and white colour options, with silver or gold aluminium trim.

Since this is an ongoing event, we have no proper press pics, but you can check out MyDrivers for live coverage - but remember to bring a translator.

ZTE has finally updated its flagship phone line-up and it has decided to launch all three Z7 series phones at once. They all share a similar spec, but as the naming implies there are some notable distinctions.

The ZTE Nubia Z7 comes with Snapdragon 801 chipset at 2.5GHz and runs Android 4.4 KitKat with Nubia UI 2.0 on top of it. It comes with 3GB of RAM and has a 5-megapixel front facing camera and 13-megapixel main camera with an f/2.0 lens and optical image stabilization. The most important feature is the 5.5-screen with a resolution of 2560x1440, making it a direct competitor to LG G3 phone.

The phone comes with dual SIM support, international LTE support as well as dual-band 802.11ac WiFI and it has a 3000mAh battery. The Nubia Z7 measures 139 x 71 x 9mm and it is not the thinnest phone around. At the current price of ¥3,456.00, or about €409 and $555 it is fairly modestly priced for the specification. The Nubia Z7 Max has a downscaled resolution of 1080p and it has the same 5.5-inch screen size. At 152.7 x 76 x 8.7mm it seems a bit taller and wider than the Z7 Nubia, but a few parts of a millimetre skinnier.

The phones share much of the spec, including the Snadragon 801 SoC clocked at 2.5GHz, Android Kit Kat 4,4 with Nubia UI 2.0, LTE and 3G support as well as dual SIM. It has 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, backed by a microSD slot. It also comes with a 13-megapixel camera with F2.0 lens, while the front facing camera stays at 5 megapixels. It comes with a respectable 3100mAh battery.

It sells for ¥1,999.00, which translates to €237 $322 at the current exchange rate. At this price, the device looks like a great buy.

Last on the list is the Z7 mini that comes in a few different colour options, including yellow, light green, some sort of red and of course white. This 445 PPI phone has a 1920x1080 5-inch screen and just like the Z7 max it has Android 4.4 with Nubia UI 2.0 on a Snapdragon 801 chipset with 2GB RAM but, it has of 16GB storage. Dual SIM and microSD support is also there and so is LTE. It has the same 13-megapixel rear and 5-megapixel front camera combo.

It measures 140.9 x 69.3 x 8.2mm and weighs 143g and it has a 2300mAh battery. It is priced at ¥1,499.00 or €177.5/$241 making it really affordable.

All phones have a great spec, the design is nice and they are priced competitively, but then again ZTE is not an A1 brand that goes against the likes of Samsung, LG or HTC. The 2K mobile screen is a nice surprise showing us that just about any new high end phone that comes in second part of 2014 or early 2015 will end up with a 2560x1440 screen.

ZTE has officially unveiled the Nubia Z5, the company's latest flagship smartphone. The Z5 is the first high-end smartphone in ZTE's Nubia range and will be available for pre-order ahead of its scheduled January release.

In case you missed it awhile back, the Nubia Z54 features a 5-inch 1920x1080 display made by Sharp and is powered by Qualcomm's quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro CPU running at 1.5GHz. It also comes with 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage space, WiFi, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0 and HSPA+ connectivity, as well as a 13-megapixel rear and a 2-megapixel front camera. It runs on Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean OS and features a 2300mAh battery. ZTE decided to pack it in a a 7.6mm thin aluminum unibody case with an impressive ultra-slim bezel design.

As noted, the new Nubia Z5 is currently available for pre-order in China for 3,456 yuan ($555) and is scheduled to ship in January. Unfortunately, there are no details regarding the international availability of the new Nubia Z5 but it is quite likely that it will show up at CES 2013.